


These Friday Sessions

by pyrrhocorax (mniotilta)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mniotilta/pseuds/pyrrhocorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Title: Good friends, bad weeks, and hiding from campus infamy is a lot harder than previously expected when you're lugging around a cello.</p><p>Based in zmeess' Uni!Au, which you can learn more about and see great art at marinovannyeogurchiki on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Friday Sessions

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of non-canon human names, we have:
> 
> Norway: Halvard ("Halle")  
> Denmark: Henrik  
> Belgium: Charlotte

Most Friday afternoons, be it rain or shine, it isn't that difficult of a thing to find Halvard on campus.  
  
Towards the end of the week, a lot of the centermost places on campus become sparsely populated. Class is out and the majority of students and teachers alike just want to go home and forget about deadlines hanging over their heads like cobwebs—annoying, just out of reach, but transparent enough that one can heed them no mind. There are many ways to celebrate the end of the week. Some take a mid-afternoon nap, some get ready for a long night on the town, others relax quietly by themselves.  
  
But by chance you're on the campus green on a Friday afternoon, tucked between a modern-looking building and one with sooty bricks in desperate need cleaning, you might hear the soft notes of a cello.  
  
Halvard had started performing these audienceless concerts early in his first semester, sitting on cracked abandoned stairs that once lead to somewhere, but now only lead to a brick wall. There was always the option of playing in his room, but that risked his neighbors finding out and either reporting him for a sound violation (as he often times played incredibly loudly) or a stranger knocking on his door and asking him to play for some sort of occasion (birthdays, mainly).  
  
The latter prospect was much worse.  
  
On campus grounds, he could always flee if someone tried to approach him, lamenting that he had somewhere really urgent to be, and quickly squeezing between buildings and out of sight as if he was never there at all. Never had this been the case—for most of the people who did pass by were preoccupied with themselves and could care less about a man with questionable taste in sweaters—but it was always better to be safe then being constantly pestered into playing songs for your neighbor's girlfriend's brother's anniversary. It had happened once when he was younger and less adapt at talking himself out of situations. Never again.  
  
He also just happened to like being outside and found he was more creative that way.  
  
On these “Friday Sessions” as Natalia had started calling them, Halvard was essentially alone, and therefore, also at peace.

* * *

  
The Friday Sessions remained untainted for a long while. Halvard eventually confessed that this concert existed to a few of his closest friends—who had seen the cello case tucked away in a corner of his room and asked about it—but they respected his need for it being a private thing, not interrupting him if they decided to catch a few songs before going on with their daily life.  
  
That is, until, one Friday where the stars had aligned in all the wrong ways.  
  
The first of these problems was that his brother had willingly requested to hang out with him—a rare thing among this pair of siblings—something that Halvard was not going to turn down. The only problem was that the scheduled time of meeting was also Halvard's ideal time to play.  
  
The second of these problems was that Halvard was itching to create. He had foregone playing for a while. Two weeks ago, he had gotten sick—not bad enough to stop him in his tracks, but bad enough that he spent the entire weekend sniffling in bed studying because he lacked the energy to do much else. The week after that, he felt fine, but a very nasty storm blew in. He had thought about playing anyway, as he often did play in the rain if he was sheltered enough, but after a close lightning strike had struck—shaking the building he lived in so much that he, in a moment of surprise, spilled coffee all over himself—he decided against it. With all this pent up energy inside of him that needed an outlet, he needed to play for his own well-being.  
  
The third of these problems was that while the weather had been awful the past month, this particular Friday was the epitome of beautiful. It was the right temperature, with only a few clouds in the sky, and it just so happened that there were some unplanned electrical problems in many of the surrounding buildings, leaving class to be canceled.  
  
So you have Halvard, with this extreme itch to vent by way of playing music, on campus during a busier time of day, and a bunch of students who now have nothing to do for an hour or two but enjoy the good weather.  
  
“ _It's fine, right?_ ” he thought to himself, fingers dashing quickly over strings during the chorus of his personal rendition of Toxic by Brittany Spears. “ _People haven't payed attention to me before, why would they start now?_ ”  
  
He closed his eyes for way too long while playing and when he opened them, there was not only people crowded around him in hushed silence, but camera phones pointed at him too.  
  
He paused playing, thought for a moment, and quickly packed up before hurrying away as fast as he could.

* * *

  
Rumors spread quickly that weekend of a very talented cello player on campus. Videos and pictures were sent to friends, and then to friends of friends, until a sizable portion of the student body knew of him. More information started making its way through the woodwork. “omg I know this guy! He's in my class!” and “he plays there every friday, didn't u know? lol” were both comments on a blurry picture found on Charlotte's Facebook feed.  
  
“Look at you, being all famous, Halle,” Henrik says, passing Charlotte's phone back to her while biting into his sandwich.  
  
“This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”  
  
Henrik, Halvard, and Charlotte often met for lunch on Mondays, in which their class schedules gave them two hours of free time to eat, chat, and generally enjoy each other's company. They often talked about their classes, or lamented about the beginning of the week, but today, the topic was entirely centered around Halvard.  
  
“I thought the worst thing that ever happened to you was when you ruined your favorite sweater by accidentally setting the sleeve on fire when you were trying to light a candle?”  
  
“Who told you about that?”  
  
“Natalia.”  
  
“Figures,” Halvard grunts. “Maybe it's not as bad as that, but...”  
  
“But you don't want to draw attention to yourself,” Charlotte nods, “I understand. Maybe wear sunglasses? Perhaps people won't recognize you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Henrik swallows after finishing chewing. “And we can follow you around from class to class, also wearing sunglasses, and pretend to be secret agents!”  
  
“Listen, pisslord,” Halvard points his fork at Henrik, “The idea here is to minimize attention, not increase it, and you two bozos following me around would just make it worse.”  
  
Still, Halvard lets the two of them pretend to fire guns while making “pew pew” noises. And he has to admit, he's amused by Charlotte saying “Get down, Mr. President!” in a gruff voice while Henrik leans over and mimics shielding Halvard from an oncoming attack. They care about him, and he does feel a bit better about the whole ordeal, even if there is some unnecessary silliness.  
  
“Oh, oh, oh! By the way,” Charlotte suddenly stops roleplaying, eyeing Halvard in a teasing way. “Just so you're aware, I heard a rumor that the campus newspaper wants to do a story about the mystery cello player! Lucky you, right?”  
  
“Fuck,” is all Halvard has to say about that matter, picking up and taking a long sip of Henrik's drink, slamming it down furiously before declaring he was going to class early and leaving.  
  
“He could've at least _asked_ if he could have some,” Henrik mumbles, finishing off the little liquid that remains.  
  
Charlotte just laughs.

* * *

  
Halvard didn't know that journalism students were capable of climbing trees.  
  
He had severely underestimated their abilities.  
  
It was the following Friday and the buzz had mostly died down. A few people had tried to approach him, but after a few death-glares, the interest in him ceased. By Thursday, he was just a normal student, in normal classes, with normal assignments and a normal amount of school-related stress, and all was seemingly back to normal for Halvard.  
  
But given the strain of this week, Halvard felt the need to play again. In his last class of the week, he couldn't help himself from tapping musical notes with his left hand as he took class notes with his right.  
  
It was overcast, with some drizzling on and off. Instead of playing in his usual spot, he wandered a little. Eventually, he found a spot that he thought was secluded enough to play a little, with some stairs that worked well enough as a chair, and began.  
  
Until, about twenty minutes in, he heard a camera click. He immediately placed the cello and bow back into his case, pulling up the neck of his sweater over most of his head and mouth, and tried to find the culprit.  
  
Nobody was around. The camera clicked again. Above him.  
  
Hanging upside down from a tree limb was a young man with short black hair who looked oddly familiar, clicking buttons on a very professional looking camera to adjust the settings. They stared at each other in silence, with Halvard in awe that someone had not only managed to sneak past him, but also scale a tree, without him noticing.  
  
“You mind, like, shifting over to the left a little, and pulling your sweater down?”  
  
“Aren't you my brother's friend?”  
  
“Yeah. We hang out sometimes.” He snaps another photograph nonchalantly. “He's cool.”  
  
“Doesn't this go against the ethics of journalism,” Halvard sighs, voice muffled by the fabric in front of his face, “I don't want to be in the paper. I haven't consented to being the subject of an article, nor having my picture taken.”  
  
Another moment of prolonged eye contact ends as a gasp is heard to Halvard's right. A short girl with blonde bobbed hair had just turned the corner, clutching her camera tightly. She seems excited, and Halvard deduces that she's another journalist, bright-eyed and ready to score her first big story.  
  
“Can I interview you?” she asks politely, her voice soft.  
  
The rational part of Halvard decides that it's probably a good idea to just get this over with and explain to her and the rest of school paper that no, he doesn't want to be in the newspaper no matter how much he's bribed. The thought of having to negotiate himself out of this is going to be a pain, but it's better than ending up on the front page and bringing more attention to himself when he really, really just wants to be left alone.  
  
However, the primal instinct that exists within Halvard tells him flee. So, instead of responding to the girl's question like a normal human being, he says “Well, about that,” while flinging the cello case over his shoulder, pauses for a moment, and takes off running as fast as he can.  
  
The upside-down photographer snaps a blurry picture of Halvard's behind.

* * *

  
And that was the end of Halvard's brief run-in with unwanted campus infamy. The Friday Sessions resumed the following week without a hitch, but he asked Henrik and Charlotte to sit next to him under the excuse that he wanted opinions on a piece he had written himself. He wouldn't admit to anyone that their company was more for emotional support rather than musical critique, but it was.  
  
He did his piece, received supportive words, and then did a classical piece before moving into a song that the other two recognized, singing along to it softly while holding hands.  
  
The three of them took a musical break, but when the subject turned to Halvard's philosophy paper he had to write this weekend, the conversation quickly became Halvard debating about Kant's works aloud with himself while Henrik and Charlotte looked at him blankly, losing track of what exactly he was talking about ages ago (and they were pretty sure Halvard had gotten so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had forgotten that he was actually talking to other people). Honestly, they were much more enthralled with a figure slowly approaching him from behind, mocking him and his gestures perfectly.  
  
“So you see,” Halvard tilts his head in thought, his voice barely loud enough for anyone to hear him, “If I approach it like that, I thi—”  
  
“Philosophize _THIS_ ,” yells Natalia, hitting him gently atop the scalp in the same way siblings jest, before sitting down beside him with a black bundle in her arms.  
  
Halvard's eyes narrow and he gives her a skeptical, pouting look as he rubs his head.  
  
“Whatcha got there?” Henrik questions, pointing.  
  
“A present for the baby,” Natalia smirks in a taunting voice, handing it to Halvard. “You had a rough time last week and you're still grumpier than usual, so I secretly made you something.”  
  
Halvard unfurls it, takes one look at the front, and puts it on his sweaterless body without a second thought.  
  
“Humans are the worst animal,” he mutters, echoing the blue writing across the sweater's front, “Indeed they are, thank you. I'm going to become a cat instead.”  
  
“Hey, follow your dreams man,” and Henrik slaps him across the back, grinning. “You can become anything you want to. I believe in you.”  
  
“Yeah, I agree with Henrik. Change your major to feline transformation or witchcraft. Suits you better.”  
  
“Maybe I will, then.”  
  
And so, this Friday Session comes to a close, with a promise of many more to come.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Inspired by a person who would play bagpipes and walk around part of campus every Friday when I was going to school in Iowa. I never talked to them but I spent a lot of time sitting in the grass listening to them play because I thought it was neat and relaxing, that someone, without fail, would play the bagpipes if you were one of the twenty people passing through that part of campus during that time (I spent most of my Friday afternoons on campus walking around and exploring parts that were devoid of people and always had a good time discovering stuff like this).
> 
> \- I don't actually know if I've read Kant but he was the first philosopher who came to mind.
> 
> \- “Humans are the Worst Animal” is indeed a real sweater you can get off of zazzle that I very much want.


End file.
